It All Starts with Me.
God, I can't remember the last time I sat down to actually write anything for this site. I've been busy and tired, and I've been bogged down by my mental illnesses. Which is not really a unique situation, to be frank.
Want me to be real for about half a page or so? I'm having a really hard time. This year will make five years since my mom's death, and anyone who's read my work knows my relationship with her was um...really not great lol.
But because I'll never have any real closure on what all happened between us, I'm basing a book on our relationship and exploring what all went on and how the characters will deal with it in a way that my mother and I didn't. I've spent the past several days studying her blogs from years ago, and I feel so raw and hollowed out right now.
Reading things that she's told me before, but that I didn't have the maturity to really acknowledge at the time, and trying to apply them to this book that is already going to strip me naked to the world is fucking terrifying. And there's no one in my life I can talk about this to. Therapy is bitchin expensive, and my siblings (the only ones who can understand what it's like losing this woman from the perspective of one of her children) refuse to acknowledge that there was anything bad about her at all. But I can't really blame them for that, because for these past few years, I refused to acknowledge anything good about her.
Anyway, I'm just frustrated because I've teared up in a public Starbucks about five times in the two hours that I've been here, and I'm terrified that if I write this book, the little family that I've kept in contact with will turn away from me because I don't want to pretend that my mother was this amazing angel.
But I need to tell this story. I need to acknowledge both the good and the bad in my mom. I need to acknowledge what I did wrong and what I did right in regards to my relationship with her. I need to close this chapter and walk into the rest of my life with my head held high and the will to grow and be better, rather than stagnate and wonder why nothing ever changes.
My memoir
If I were to write a memoir, I would detail my experience with self loathing and how I hurt myself as a way of releasing that hate. I would detail trying to live in a life where I don’t know what’s real and what I have trained myself to see. I would explain how I try to love myself because I know deep down in the depth of my heart that there is some part of me that loves me. I would show what it’s like being scared to come out of the closet for the first time...and why I keep going back. How hard I try to be a better person than I was yesterday, how I want tomorrow to be better than today. I would detail my friends and how I hold them in my heart.
A Memoir About My Memoir
Been there, done that as seven years ago, I attempted a fictionalized memoir about the first time I fell hard for someone. It was an epic failure and I can write a whole memoir about the fallout I experienced. We're talking friendships lost, strain on a marriage, personal attacks, and a direct threat. This memoir is probably more interesting than the now unpublished one.
The Problem With IQ
I was listening to a video by Owen Benjamin, and he made the following argument that many people agree with. He claims to have an IQ of 150. He tells his listeners how the average IQ is between 100 and 110. He points out that the average person sees an individual with an IQ of 60 or lower as degenerate, dumb, and incapable of many things. Therefore, imagine how a man with a 150 IQ sees people with an IQ of 100.
I, personally, empathized with this statement and was also appalled by it. IQ is nothing more than a rough estimate of someone's ability to absorb new information and connect it with their previous knowledge. IQ's purpose is to categorize people by their ability to learn, not overall intelligence.
I can empathize with Mr Benjamin, because he is an intelligent person, and it is sometimes very lonely to feel like you can't hold a conversation with other people or can't find common interests. But this lack of interest in other people is not a symptom of being smarter than everyone, it is a superiority complex.
There is so much more to community and social interaction than comparative intelligence. It's about finding common ground, relating to people outside your personal space, and creating a support system of trusted individuals. You can do all of this with or without impressive test scores. Being intelligent doesn't mean you are correct, successful, kind, friendly, healthy, or even pleasant company.
I understand how it must feel to not find people who have the same interests as you, but that doesn't mean you have the right to look down on others and deem them "unworthy" of you. I would think someone with an IQ of 150 would have been able to figure out that it's not his intelligence people avoid, but his bad attitude and unacceptance of people different to him.
Coming to a Store Near You
Everyone is going to steal my idea after this, but when I have some success, I planned on making a coloring book of the seven or so years I spent living in one of my various childhood homes. I moved a lot, but a lot of my happiest (and saddest) memories occurred there. From going to carnivals to getting my own room to accidentally hitting my brother in the head with a metal pole, I figured it would be a creative way to let kids get to know me. It would be better than a regular memoir because one, memoirs are long and I'm pretty uncomfortable about rambling about me for 500 pages or so, and two, my experience is rather boring. I came, I lived, I wrote, repeat. At least a coloring book will make my experience at least a little easier to get through and more manageable and you can color me however you want. I can be purple for all I care. Plus, I know I can make a special edition with all of my favorite words (not for kids). Now, I just need an artist...
Reflections
There are lights outside
Hanging from the ceiling
Like mini flying saucers
Hovering above the street.
There are books
Outside
Floating on see-through shelves
Full of invisible words.
There are ghosts of people
Sitting at tables
As cars pass through them.
Reflections
Making the outside
Other than it is
As my reflections
Make the world a different place.
